WAVE INTERACTIONS OF H-TYPE FLOATING BREAKWATER

Rapid development along coastal area calls for protection structures to be built along the coastline to protect the area from destructive wave energy. However, suppression of wave energy itself has been a challenge to many coastal engineers and researchers worldwide. Numerous studies and countless efforts were put into the development of hard and soft strategies in protecting coastal infrastructures. Breakwaters are one of such method, generally constructed to protect a certain area by breaking the incoming waves and dissipating the energy to a harmless level. Breakwaters are widely implemented due to high degree of protection offered. However despite its excellent wave dampening ability, fixed breakwaters are getting negative views with regards to the environment, i.e. interruption of sediment transport, interference with fish migration, water pollution and downdrift erosions. Floating breakwaters are introduced as an alternative to the fixed breakwater with regards to environmental and cost advantage. H-type floating breakwater is a new configuration of floating breakwater that was recently proposed and developed. This study is conducted to further evaluate the performance of H-type floating breakwater as well as the effects of draft on its performance. A medium size test model with a scale of 1:10 was constructed using plywood and coated by fiberglass for waterproofing. This model was tested in a 25 meter wave flume against random waves to simulate realistic sea conditions. The variable parameters of this study include wave period, wave steepness and breakwater draft. The performance of the H-type floating breakwater was assessed based on the reflection and transmission coefficients as well as energy dissipation. The results were compared against other breakwater models as well as the larger scale of similar H-type model configuration. Conclusively, the H-type breakwater model with scale of 1:10 is an effective floating breakwater with excellent capability in attenuating wave energy by energy dissipation and wave reflection.